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The week on the web
Daniel Forman
It's been a good week for Gordon Brown, although the man himself has been conspicuously quiet given the amount of activity going on around him.
For most political anoraks the week starts with Andrew Rawnsley's must-read column in the Observer, which predicted that the chancellor would face no cabinet level challenge for the Labour leadership next year.
The story was authoritavely followed up by Philip Webster in the Times on Thursday and by the time of the 10 o'clock news had become a BBC "exclusive".
Never mind that Nick Robinson gets enough genuine scoops not to need to claim others' for himself, three of Wesminster's best-connected journalists had all come to the same conclusion: Brown will at worst have a cakewalk and at best the coronation he has always wanted.
With the premiership seemingly stitched up, Brown has been dropping more hints as to what his policy programme would be in Number 10.
A letter from his Treasury number two Stephen Timms floated the idea of a single security budget and a new drive to win Muslim "hearts and minds".
Sports minister Richard Caborn has said Brown is "very, very keen" on the idea of bidding for the 2018 World Cup.
And then there was the Stern report, his Treasury-commissioned review of climate change economics which dominated the headlines at the start of the week and confirmed his green credentials, at the same time as reassuring middle England that he would not be jacking up their taxes, as suggested by David Miliband.
By the middle of the week the story was the Speaker's decision to stop David Cameron asking a question about Brown to Tony Blair.
The spat was significant in Westminster circles but also the kind of process story that most voters couldn't care less about.
But what was interesting was Blair's eventual response: Backing Brown, even though he wasn't in the chamber, rather than the kind of non-answer that would have triggered fresh speculation.
The prize is now tantalisingly close. But, as Michael White points out in the Guardian, don't bet against Downing Street relations falling apart again just yet.
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Published: Fri, 3 Nov 2006 15:22:12 GMT+00
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